Element Christian Church of Santa Maria

The scriptures present believers with a great volume of information to consider. Some issues the Bible is firm and others are left to the interpretation of the reader; the former are called closed handed issues and the latter are called open handed issues.

When we center our lives on the person of Christ, our grace expands, our love expands, and most importantly, we become less exclusive and our circle expands to be as large as Jesus’.

Figure out where God has gifted you, embrace it, love it, and live in it. Jesus redeemed us from our lost way of life, from our wanting what others have and judging those who don’t have what we have. We use all He has given us to glorify Him and serve one another.

The idea of a pure church only finds its purity in Christ...not ourselves. Thankfully Jesus is the one who taught that first.

If we do not want to become Pharisees we must develop the ability to (1) learn from the past without idealizing the past, and (2) speak the truth in love.

2 Timothy 1:7 says that God gave us a spirit not of fear, but of power, love, and self-control. Many times parenting is scary, especially for new parents that aren’t totally sure of what they are doing. No parent wants to hurt or crush their child. However, when we live our lives in fear instead of walking in God’s freedom, we do exactly that--we crush those around us. We set up little gods or ido...

We are sent to the world to make disciples, not make them all look the same. The heart cry of our culture today is unity, and yet the only way for our world to come together is in Jesus.

Today when we say, “Pharisee,” it usually conjures up all sorts of negative connotations. While those negative associations will mostly be what we cover in this series, I also want you to understand that the Pharisees, of all the religious orders at the time of the resurrection, were the ones who had the most members who ended up following and surrendering their lives to the risen Christ.

Friday Jesus was executed. Saturday was the day of silence on the earth. Sunday the world changed, not just for Jesus’ early followers, but for all of us because Jesus rose from the grave.

The focus of Good Friday is when we focus on the day our sins get paid for by Jesus dying our death for us on a cross, Easter Sunday is our joyous hope and celebration that comes together into loud celebration…but there is no holiday day for Saturday…Would it be called “quiet day” “patience day” Often you don't hear a message about a Saturday…there is only one church father who ever really wrote o...

John Ortberg asks in his book, Who Is This Man, “How did Friday end as Friday? Why did Jesus die? How did this man (meek and mild, blesser of little children, friend of sinners) end up being executed as an enemy of the state?” Friday ends with 3 crosses erected outside of Jerusalem. Two of these crosses have thieves nailed to them, while one is already empty, yet it has a sign over it that reads:...

Laodicea sat between two cities; one with hot water, and the other with cold. Both of these cities produced good water, but the water source in Laodicea was terrible. It wasn’t hot or cold, it was lukewarm, reddish in color, and induced vomiting. Like the city’s water, the church was lukewarm and Jesus was on the verge of vomiting them out of his mouth

The church in Philadelphia was commended for their endurance in following Jesus even in the midst of trials. When Jesus encourages this church He calls the Jews who are making their lives hard a “synagogue of Satan.” The word for Satan means “adversary” or “accuser,” Jesus’ words were not an a attack against Jews in general, but a reference to Jews in Philadelphia who denounced Jewish Christians b...

This week we looked at the church in Sardis. We learned that Sardis was wildly successful; they were innovative and had great wealth. However, the people in Sardis were over-confident in their city and held the belief that they could never be conquered. History tells us the city was conquered twice by surprise because the city had “fallen asleep.”

This week, we looked at the church of Thyatira. Jesus starts off his message to Thyatira with a remembrance of who He is (the Son of God) and that He sees all (eyes of fire) and that He is immovable (feet of burnished bronze). He then gives one sentence of praise before moving into the area of sin that both Thyatira and the current church (Element included) fall into -- the sin of tolerance.

This week, we looked at the Church in Pergamum. The first thing we learned about this city is that its residents were incredibly religious. They worshiped SO MANY gods it was almost suffocating. If you entered the city of Pergamum you would see temple after temple and people offering gifts, money, and time to these gods in order to please them. Much of their service to these gods was based out of...

Smyrna was a harbor city (a beach town) that was well known for its temple to the “Mother Goddess” and its provincial imperial cult temples. Smyrna had paved streets, a library, and a gymnasium which led many to want to visit this city of wealth and prestige. Smyrna could have been a lot like the American Church today, in a position of relative comfort, but could see persecution looming on the not...

Revelation 2:1-7 This passage tells the history of a church that was filled with the passion of the gospel, but a generation later, the church has become self-focused. Many scholars will point out that THIS CHURCH started because they understood that the world needed to hear the good news of Jesus, THEY WERE BOLD fresh and creative, but somewhere they lost that passion and impulse.

Today we are wrapping up our first sermon series of the year, The Prodigal God. This series has examined the Parable of the Prodigal Son, found in Luke 15, as well as the parable of the lost coin and the lost sheep (also found in Luke 15). We have looked at the parable of the prodigal son from three different perspectives; the father, the older brother, and the younger brother.

In today’s message we went through the story again, but we tried to do it with an eye on the father. The story of Luke 15 is a story about the father and his character. Luke 15:11 And he said, “There was a man who had two sons. Luke 15:20 his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him. Luke 15:22 But the father said to his servants, Luke 15:28 His father came out a...

The older brother in the prodigal son parable told himself that he was superior to his younger brother who had squandered his inheritance. The older brother was, most likely also convinced that he was superior to his father who welcomed home a reckless youth. When we are able to convince ourselves that we are better than someone else, it becomes impossible to love him or her. We eventually will st...

This week, Eric discussed the younger son in the prodigal son parable. The parable of the Prodigal Son has been called The Evangelium in Evangelio which means the Gospel within the Gospel. It is as if in Jesus’ parable we have a microcosm of the cosmic gospel. All the elements are there – a lavish Father, rebellion, repentance, and a homecoming. Along with the Good Samaritan, this is, no doubt, on...

In the parable of the Lost Sheep and the Lost Coin (Luke 15:1-10), we see God’s plan of salvation, as well as His involvement in seeking out, finding, restoring, and rejoicing in His lost people. Rather than hiring somebody to go out and search for us, God sought us out Himself, because He is personally interested in each one of us. God took it upon Himself to rescue us despite (in spite of our si...

Listen to our Christmas Eve 2014 Message here.

After approximately one year, Element is concluding the Sermon on the Mount, and what a journey it has been! Simply because the sermon series is ending, it does not provide an excuse not to take Jesus’ words to heart. Remember, Jesus ends the sermon with a call to action.